A SHIP'S HULL

Abstract: The invention relates to a ship's hull comprising a first hull part (1) arranged as a hard-chine hull disposed on a second hull part (2) in the shape of a super-slender float. Due to the fact that in service conditions only the aft half of the first hull part intersects the water surface, two separate bow waves develop. By appropriate selection of hull widths and by disposition of the first hull part (1) on the second hull part (2), the bow waves are in phase opposition. This reduces the wave-induced drag of the ship's hull considerably, especially near the critical speed.

Description: A ship' s hull The present invention relates to a ship's hull comprising a first hull part being at least substantially arranged as a hard-chine hull and, disposed under the first hull part, a second hull part which extends over at least substantially the full length of the first hull part and which is designed as an extremely slender float. A ship's hull of this type is known from US-A 2,371,478. As to the ship's hull described therein, the entire buoyancy required for the ship, load and crew is developed by the second hull part. This has the disadvantage that the transverse stability of a hull according to such a design can be insufficient. According to the inventive idea of the present invention, a part of the buoyancy is provided by the considerably wider first hull part and, in this manner, a sufficient transverse stability is obtained without significant deterioration in the hull's wave-induced drag, especially in the range of speeds beyond the ship-bound critical hull speed, well known to those skilled in the art. This makes it feasible to achieve speeds of two or three times the calculated critical hull speed, using a modest engine power. The invention is characterized in that the second hull part provides from 70% to 90% of the buoyancy in service conditions. In a preferred embodiment of the invention, the ship's hull is characterized in that the first hull part is disposed on the second hull part in such a way that in service conditions the fore end of the first hull part is above the water level and the aft end of the first hull part is at least partly below the water level. The advantage is that a bow wave inevitably produced by the first hull part arises under the ship's hull and brings about an upward pressure near the centre of gravity of the ship's hull. This also prevents that at high speeds excessive changes in trim occur, forcing the bow of the ship's hull upwards. Another preferred embodiment of the invention is aimed at minimizing the drag of the ship's hull at a speed which at least substantially corresponds with the ship-bound critical hull speed. Here, the inventive idea is that, whereas it is inevitable that the first hull part as well as the second hull part produces a bow wave, these bow waves arise in different places. According to the inventive idea, the ship's hull is characterized in that the first hull part is disposed on the second hull part in such a way that a first bow wave of the first hull part and a second bow wave of the second hull part at least substantially neutralize each other. From tests with a model on a scale of 1 to 10 this neutralization, or actually this non- occurrence of resonance phenomena giving rise to the wave- induced drag, continues to exist at speeds higher, and even significantly higher, than the ship-bound critical hull speed. It is true that in a measuring range from zero to four times the ship-bound critical hull speed, the wave- induced drag increases, but the slope discontinuity in the graph of the wave-induced drag as a function of speed is absent. Therefore, sailing at speeds far beyond the ship- bound critical hull speed is practicable without an excessive increase in fuel consumption. Accordingly, in a preferred embodiment of the invention, a feature of the ship's hull is that it is characterized in that in service conditions at least substantially all of the fore half of the first hull part is above the water level. To be able to achieve that at a different load, too, the first bow wave and the second bow wave neutralize each other at least substantially, the second hull part can be provided with at least one ballast tank. With large roll angles, a major part of the self-righting moment of the ship's hull is obtained from the weight of the second hull part comprising the ship's engine, the fuel and a supply of fresh water, in addition to the ballast tank. With small roll angles, the second hull part is of no importance or even disadvantageous. With small roll angles, the fore half of the first hull part, which is usually above water, is not capable of contributing to the self- righting moment either. Further, because the water displacement per unit of length of the first hull part decreases at least substantially monotonously from the bow to the stern, it is self-understanding that especially the aft half of the first hull part is arranged for obtaining a sufficient transverse stability at small roll angles. In making an optimized design, the self-righting moment of the second hull part will be combined with the self- righting moment of a first hull part of the design in such a manner that the first hull part is designed for obtaining, in combination with the second hull part, a self-righting moment which increases monotonously as the roll angle increases,. resulting in a flexible, stable and non-laboursome behaviour. As to the ship's hull according to the invention it can be stated that it is a synthesis of the so-called super- slender water displacer having a width-to-length ratio of e.g. 6.5% and the classic ship's hull, for instance, the hard-chine hull having a width-to-length ratio of e.g. 30%. The ship's hull according to the invention is characterized in that the width-to-length ratio of the first hull part amounts to 27%-38% and that of the second hull part amounts to 6%-9%. In another preferred embodiment of the invention, the second hull part also is at least substantially a hard- chine body. So, because no expensive moulds are required, production of the ship's hull according to the invention is practicable at virtually every shipbuilding yard. As to the second hull part it should be noted that it has a low-drag profile, especially known from the aircraft construction industry, in order to minimize viscous friction and to prevent the occurrence of turbulence. The invention will now be further explained with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which: Fig. 1 is a side view of the ship's hull in service condition; Fig. 2 is a plan view of the ship's hull in service condition; Fig. 3 is a graph of the engine power required for a 10 m long ship's hull according to the invention; Fig. 4 is a simplified body plan of the ship's hull; Fig. 5 is a graph of the self-righting moment of the ship's hull according to the invention; Fig. 6 is a graph of the step response for rotation about the longitudinal axis of the ship's hull according to the invention. Every ship is marked by a certain speed byond which a drastic increase in fuel consumption occurs. This speed, called the ship-bound critical hull speed is proportional to the square root of the ship's length. This phenomenon is associated with the occurrence of a sailing ship's bow wave and stern wave which amplify each other by interaction as soon as the critical hull speed is reached. There are two known methods of evading this phenomenon. The first method is adopted in e.g. a catamaran. Here, it involves a so- called super-slender water displacer having a width-to- length ratio of e.g. 6.5%. Such a water displacer is known to develop virtually no bow wave and stern wave and to be free from the resonance effect which gives rise to a high wave-induced drag. The second method involves a vessel which planes and, accordingly, does not produce a bow wave. Either method has its specific drawbacks. A super-slender water displacer is less suitable for applications where the ship must have a cabin, e.g. a pleasure-boat or a patrol craft. A planing vessel, however, calls for a very large engine power, which entails a correspondingly high power consumption and a short radius of action as well as highly limited comfort to the persons on board, especially when one has to fall back on the water displacement mode because of the sea state. The ship according to the invention whose hull in service condition is shown in the side view of Fig. 1 is intended to solve the problem in an inventive manner by the disposition of a first hull part 1, actually a classic ship's hull, on a second hull part 2, actually a super- slender water displacer. For the transverse stability it is then necessary that the first hull part is at least partly under water. This inevitably entails that a bow wave arises there where the first hull part 1 intersects the water surface. In accordance with the invention, this point is chosen to be approximately halfway the length of the ship's hull, in Fig. 1 near the ship's centre of gravity. The fore end of the first hull part 1 is above the water level and the aft end is under the water level. The line of intersection 4 of the first hull part and the water surface is is also shown. Fig. 2 shows a plan view of the ship's hull according to the invention comprising the first hull part 1, the second hull part 2, centre of gravity 3 and the line of intersection 4 of the first hull part 1 and the water surface. Tests with a model on a scale of 1 to 10 show, as expected, that the first hull part 1 as well as the second hull part 2 produces a bow wave. If the width-to-length ratio is now chosen to be 27%-38% for the first hull part, and 6%-9% for the second hull part, while making the bow wave of the first hull part arise halfway the ship's hull, then it appears that during sailing at the critical hull speed the two bow waves are in phase opposition, and that even at higher speeds a sudden increase in the wave-induced drag is not observed. A heuristic explanation of this advantageous effect is that, on one hand, the aforementioned resonance does not occur and, on the other hand, the ship does not need to sail against its own bow wave, but that the bow wave developed halfway actually produces a lifting force acting near the centre of gravity. With the scale model, the resistance of the ship's hull as a function of speed has been measured. The resistance thus measured is the total resistance, the sum of the wave- induced drag and the viscous frictional resistance. Subsequently, the viscous friction has been calculated with reference to the wet surface area of the scale model and the ITTC formula generally known in the art, making use of the Reynolds number calculated for the scale model. The wave-induced drag thus obtained can then be scaled up to a ship's hull of 10 m in length by the method generally known in the art. Following this, the total resistance of a 10 ship's hull has been calculated by adding the viscous friction of the 10 m ship's hull calculated with the Reynolds number now applicable. The total resistance thus calculated is plotted as a graph shown in Fig. 3, together with graph 5 concerning a comparable, modern water displacer, and graph 5' concerning a planing deep-V hull known to those skilled in the art. It should be noted that in the ultimate, at a speed of 24 kn, the curve of the deep-V hull and that of the ship's hull according to the invention intersect. So, the present invention is particularly of importance for the range of speeds from one to three times the critical hull speed. A simplified body plan of an embodiment of the ship's hull is shown in Fig. 4, where the first hull part 1 as well as the second hull part 2 is designed according to the classic hard-chine hull technology. The frame spacing is 40 cm and the frames depicted are nos. 0, 6, 15, 18, 21 and 24. The second hull part 2 may widen in the downward direction. This makes it easier to arrange the engine, fuel tank, fresh-water tank and ballast tanks in the second hull part 2 and enables the hull to be put aground in a stable condition on a shoal. As regards the wave-induced drag, the increasing width does not present a drawback, because in this connection the width-to-length ratio at water level only is of importance. Furthermore, it should be noted that each frame comprises two united chine frame components. This makes a ship's hull according to the invention easy to produce at almost every shipbuilding yard. Also the costs of investment are low, because expensive moulds are not required such as is the case in the production of polyester ship's hulls. From Fig. 4 it also appears that the first hull part 1 diverges outwardly to the aft, where the stern is to give the ship's hull the necessary transverse stability. At small roll angles, the transverse stability actually stems from the stern only, because the fore body is above the water level and therefore unable to produce a self-righting moment, and because in that case the self-righting moment of the second hull part does not play a part. The self-righting moment M of the ship's hull according to the invention as a function of the roll angle φ is depicted in Fig. 5. Here, the first hull part 1 produces the self- righting moment at small angles, and the second hull part 2 producees a large self-righting moment at large roll angles, when this relatively heavy part comes into a horizontal position. In addition, the self-righting moment for a comparable hard-chine hull is shown as a dashed curve. From Fig. 5 it appears also that the suitably chosen shape results in a self-righting moment increasing monotonously as the roll angle increases, providing a flexible, stable and non-laboursome behaviour as compared with the hard-chine hull. Further, it appears that the surface integral of the graph associated with the ship's hull according to the invention is larger than that of the graph concerning the hard-chine hull. This indicates that the range of stability known to those skilled in the art is excellent. The comfort on board is largely determined by the step response for rotation about the longitudinal axis of a ship. Fig. 6 shows the step response of a ship's hull according to the invention at a roll angle of 6 degrees. The step response is excellent owing to the large resistance to roll motion of the second hull part 2. Besides this, the second hull part 2 provides a very good directional stability, which is sufficient to compensate the first hull part's broaching tendency, if present. A further advantage of the ship's hull is that the propulsive efficiency is relatively high because the load coefficient known to those skilled in the art is low, owing to the relatively low power desired, and because the arrangement allows for a large-diameter propeller. In addition, the arrangement according to the invention ensures a favourable flow of water onto the propeller. Since the power curve for the ship's hull, known to those skilled in the art, in the arrangement according to the invention has virtually the same pattern as the "prop law" curve for the propeller, a propeller efficiency of between 70% and 75% is feasible. Apart from a high efficiency, a propeller used in this way will increase the comfort to the people on board owing to the low level of noise produced.

Claims: Claims: 1. A ship's hull comprising a first hull part at least substantially arranged as a hard-chine hull and, disposed under the first hull part, a second hull part which extends over at least substantially the full length of the first hull part and which is designed as an extremely slender float, characterized in that the second hull part provides from 70% to 90% of the buoyancy in service conditions. 2. A ship's hull according to claim 1, characterized in that the first hull part is disposed on the second hull part in such a way that in service conditions the fore end of the first hull part is above the water level and the aft end of the first hull part is at least partly below the water level. 3. A ship's hull according to claim 2, characterized in that the first hull part is disposed on the second hull part in such a way that a first bow wave of the first hull part and a second bow wave of the second hull part are in phase opposition at substantially the ship-bound critical hull speed. 4. A ship's hull according to claim 2 or 3, characterized in that in service conditions at least substantially the fore half of the first hull part is above the water level. 5 A ship's hull according to claim 4, characterized in that the second hull part is provided with at least one ballast tank. 6. A ship's hull according to claim 4, characterized in that the water displacement per unit of length of the first hull part increases at least substantially monotonously from the bow to the stern. 7. A ship's hull according to claim 6, characterized in that the aft half of the first hull part is designed for obtaining a sufficient transverse stability at small roll angles. 8. A ship's hull according to claim 7, characterized in that the aft half of the first hull part is designed for obtaining, in combination with the second hull part, a self-righting moment which increases monotonously as the roll angle increases. 9. A ship's hull according to any one of the preceding claims, characterized in that the width-to-length ratio of the first hull part amounts to 27%-38% and the width-to- length ratio of the second hull part amounts to 6-9%. 10. A ship's hull according to claim 9, characterized in that the second hull part is designed as at least substantially a hard-chine hull.

Inventors: GELLEKINK BERNARD, GELLEKINK, BERNARD
Applicants: GELLEKINK BERNARD, HOLLANDSE SIGNAALAPPARATEN BV, GELLEKINK, BERNARD, HOLLANDSE SIGNAALAPPARATEN B.V.
Application year: 1994
Main classification: B63B1
IPC codes: B63B1, B63B43